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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28746822">Beck and Call</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch/pseuds/WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch'>WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Death Note (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Light struggling to retain his pride, M/M, Mentions of Rape, Mutually Toxic Relationship, Prison, Violent Thoughts, Yagami Light is not okay, but none of this is "on screen" so to speak, l wins, mentions of abuse, the prison system is a wreck (at least in this fic), two people sitting in a room discussing how they have ruined each others lives. oh. and they kiss, watari is mentioned for one second and he is the voice of reason., what more could you want from Lawlight?</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 14:20:43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,137</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28746822</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch/pseuds/WhyDoesEverythingHappenSoMuch</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>L always comes to see him if it's bad enough. It’s like a simple math equation if Light thinks about it. The equation is easy to figure; himself, plus any number of fractured bones and skull injuries, equals a visit from L.</p><p>Light wonders if L still keeps a mental file on him, he wonders where the proverbial page titled, ‘Light-kun throws himself into dangerous situations to lure me into visits’ fits.</p><p>---</p><p>Light is on the receiving end of trauma after trauma as a result of his imprisoning. The catch? He'd been inciting a good deal of it to leur L into a visit.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>L/Yagami Light</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>153</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Beck and Call</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hello hello dear readers. This fic is dark, Light laughs through a lot of it it, but it's worth another warning that this fic isn't exactly fun. I wrote it as a way to work out some negative thoughts and feelings and to vent my frustations, so take that as you will.</p><p>I wrote this in one go listening to Aishite Aishite on loop, you should... take that as you will as well.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>L always comes to see him if it’s bad enough. It’s like a simple math equation if Light thinks about it. The equation is easy to figure; himself, plus any number of fractured bones and skull injuries, equals a visit from L.</p><p>The sureness reminds him of grade school math classes and his coveted seat next to the windows. Pencil shaving, eraser dust, the pastel blue veins of lined paper, and the dull murmur of other classes down the hall… It is a comforting memory to return to while towering shadows of men beat him until he can’t stand. Yes, memories of early childhood work well while he waits it out on the receiving end of a litany of blunt force trauma wounds.</p><p>Memories of L work best when he is approached in the showers or in a dark corner of a workroom, or in the common rooms… the guards just tend to turn their backs. Hatred for Kira is perhaps the single thing one can expect a cop and a robber to agree on.</p><p>It’s all very mathematical if Light thinks it through, and he always does.</p><p>Light sits in the visiting room, observing its concrete walls and the glow of the single flickering bulb overhead. The radiance reminds him of the halos of Christian angels and saints. There is certainly nothing holy within these walls. Light seizes on what few beautiful things he can.</p><p>His hands are cuffed to the table, and the chain rattles each time he readjusts them; the sound is nothing like church bells. The jangling reminds him more of the B-grade horror movies he used to watch with Sayu on Halloween before he was old enough to be invited out to parties. </p><p>Light glances down at the restraints and almost wants to smile, it’s a familiar sight. </p><p>He lifts one hand to test just how far he can reach out. He’s sure there are in place to make sure he can’t touch L. It would be such a shame if the world’s greatest detective were to die despite Kira’s capture. </p><p>Light pictures it, mulls over the mental image of grabbing L by the throat and pressing and smiling all the while. His imagination won’t cooperate with him; imaginary L doesn’t cry or beg for his life. He merely smiles back and calls Light a criminal and a murderer on his last strangled breath before Light crushes his windpipe and drives a fist into his nose. </p><p>Light spends a lot of time imagining doing something horrible to L; what other inmates have done to him. From shoving him out of the lunch line to beatings resulting in a broken rib or two, Light saves up his experiences and plays them out in prismacolor on the insides of his eyelids as he lays, restless, on the thin futon. He puts together little torture films in which he gets to play director or co-star. L is always the principal actor.</p><p>His favorite film is the one in which he strangles L with the chain of their old handcuffs. L cries in this one. He always cries in Light’s favorites. There is another in which L bleeds out in their shared bed, the stain blooming like a rose under the pale man. There is another in which L shoots himself in the heart at Light’s request. There is another--</p><p>“Hello, Light-Kun.”</p><p>He looks up; the door remains slightly ajar as the detective comes into view. He is his gangly, poorly dressed self, and Light can’t help smile to see him, so unchanged. Looking at L is like getting to rewind the last few years of his life. It’s like no time has passed at all.</p><p>“Hello, L.”</p><p>L enters the room, waving off someone behind him with a small flick of a pale wrist. Light smirks; what sort of back up did L require to visit a twenty-something who never had so much as drawn blood from another person?</p><p>L pulls out the chair opposite Light, letting the metal drag against the floor. Light doesn’t give him the satisfaction of reacting to the grating noise. Sitting, L sets his own hands on the table in the same folded position as Light’s, foregoing his normal crouching position. Light had asked him about the loss of this quirk some months ago. L had merely said that he didn’t feel he needed the extra 40% of his deductive ability because he knew the extent of Light’s crimes. </p><p>Light had always found the whole percentages thing ludicrous, but it had stung his ego nonetheless. This game he plays with L is only truly fun if they both give it their all.</p><p>“You wanted to see me.” L states, staring at Light. His eyes flick down to Light’s collarbones, where dark blots of purple spill across his chest like a wine stain. L looks to his lips, split and swollen and ruddy. </p><p>It’s not a sight L is unaccustomed to. This little routine of Light’s is, at the very least, a bi-monthly occurrence. Each time L is pulled from his computer in the small hours of the morning by Watari, who will pass a file to L detailing Light’s most recent litany of life-threatening injuries. L typically tunes out Watari’s speech about how he ought not to reward such behavior. </p><p>“I didn’t ask for you.” Light replies, keeping his tone even.</p><p>L makes a faint gesture to Light’s most visible injuries, “You’ve been instigating fights.”</p><p>“Are you here to tell me I’ve been bad?”</p><p>L cocks his head, “I don’t believe you’d start listening to me now.”</p><p>“I might. Is that what you’re here to do?”</p><p>L doesn’t answer. He just drops his gaze to Light’s injuries again, as if trying to diagnose the exact sort of fracture. Light wonders if L still keeps a mental file on him; he wonders where the proverbial page titled, ‘Light-Kun throws himself into dangerous situations to lure me into visits’ fits.</p><p>“What, does the warden need you to talk me into submission?”</p><p>L frowns at the question’s wording and fidgets ever so slightly, one hand twisting into the other. Both hands set on the table, the sign of L’s discomfort plays out in full view.</p><p>Light seizes on it, “Do you still think about fucking me?”</p><p>“I don’t owe you an answer to that.” L says like he’s reminding himself. Light is no God, but he is nearly as compelling. L imagines it would feel just the same to have to lie to the face of a deity. </p><p>Light smiles, darkly, “so, you do?” Light gives a single shouldered shrug, the best he can accomplish with a broken collarbone, “I think about you too sometimes.”</p><p>“Is this really what Light-Kun wants to talk about?”</p><p>“Why shouldn’t I? You were my first. People remember firsts, even get nostalgic about them.”</p><p>“You are… nostalgic about me?”</p><p>“About the way things were.” Light corrects without much thought. It’s not until after the words fall from his lips that he realizes he’s given L a little too much ground.</p><p>L remains silent, looking impassively beyond Light’s head, focusing vaguely on the wall behind him. Light thinks back to the many times he had caught the detective staring off into space, or more disturbingly, at blank walls. He was most prone to fits of staring after they slept together. Light used to ask about it but never received an answer beyond, “I’m organizing my thoughts.”</p><p>“I think about you when they fuck me.” Light says, leaning back in his chair, despite the pain that resounds through his body at the movement--his spine isn’t in the best shape, and he’s got bruises on his tailbone. </p><p>Again Light is met with silence, except for the faint buzz of the lightbulb overhead, so he presses on, searching for exactly which word, which story of Light’s abuse will rattle L the most.</p><p>“You were my first, but most definitely not my last,” Light lets out a short, bitter laugh, “The first time I was cornered in the bathroom? Through the whole thing, I kept my eyes shut and imagined it was you.”</p><p>“Was I gentle?” L questions, his voice still flat, though a little muted, as if Light were listening to him underwater.</p><p>Light laughs; there is no reason not to anymore. He has nothing left to hide. It jerks his body forward, and one of the many broken things inside him twinges with pain, and Light’s sound of embittered humor is abruptly cut off. With a grimace, Light sits up properly in his chair.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>The two fall silent, Light staring at the man, waiting to see some sign of guilt on his face for having thrown Light in here. Surely, L knew what would happen, tossing Kira, God of this new world, Savior of the righteous, Punisher of wrongdoers, to a warehouse of some of the most prolific murderers and rapists in recent history. L must have known; how could he not?</p><p>So Light leverages his pain, makes sure L knows just how bad he has it. He wants L to know every single bruise and cut and bite he’s been subject to. He wants L to feel the pain like it’s his.</p><p>“The physicians attended to you.” It’s not phrased like a question, and L still won’t look him in the eye.</p><p>Light gives the same off-kilter shrug, “they aren’t exactly handing out painkillers like candy. But I’ve yet to bleed out. Last month-”</p><p>“I know. I know about last month.” L cuts him off, his voice sharp—a little of his dispassionate front falling away. </p><p>Light leans forward, the chain grating against the table, the sound of metal on metal piercing the air in the small room. L doesn’t lean away, but three sharp raps come from the other side of the door.</p><p>“He’s fine.” L calls back, not turning around to face the very concerned man looking through the small barred window on the door.</p><p>“To the contrary.” Light mutters, with a quiet smile to himself.</p><p>L quirks an eyebrow, “Light-Kun is admitting something very vulnerable to me. Why is that?”</p><p>“Talking to myself isn’t nearly as interesting.”</p><p>“Shocking. Coming from a narcissist.” L says, his tone isn’t exactly bitter, but it’s clear L wants it to sting. It does.</p><p>“I’m not a narcissist.”</p><p>“But you are a mass-murder.”</p><p>Light searches L’s face for any sign of discomfort, he finds none “I’m not a murderer.”</p><p>They have argued this point until it has become thin and gauzy from overuse, Light drops the subject, and L doesn’t object.</p><p>“Light-Kun has said he isn’t fine. I want to know why he is admitting something like that to me.”</p><p>“Why not? I have nothing to lose telling you things anymore. You’ll show up whenever I want to talk, no matter what I do or say. You’re still at my beck and call, L.”</p><p>“I am not.” L responds a bit too quickly, and, ah, Light has found the opening in the armor.</p><p>“You are. I mouth off to some serial killer, get slapped around, and here you are. Where did you have to fly from? France? England? America? Did you cross an ocean for me, L?”</p><p>“Where I travel is none of your business.”</p><p>Light moves to cross his arms before remembering his limited scope of movement. L glances down at his hands.</p><p>“It may not be my business, but it’s not a crime to wonder about what my friend has been up to since last month.”</p><p>“We aren’t friends.”</p><p>“Don’t ruin the game, L,” Light says, low and precise. Light is simply unable to cause anyone any harm, he isn’t even allowed a fork at mealtimes, but Light catches that telltale flash of fear in L’s eyes. He files the image away to add to his little experimental films. He knows just where he’ll insert that frame…</p><p>“The game is over.”</p><p>Light smiles easily, observing the man across from him. The harsh, unforgiving glare of the overheads don’t do him any favors. Clearly, L has yet to get those much needed hours of sleep; his dark circles stood out like bruises. His cheekbones, too, cast odd shadows, his hair stood at odd ends, that stupid oversized shirt still hung off his rail-thin body. Corpse-like, Light dubs him. Still… There is something about his bizarre frame, the way he sticks out like some supernatural aberration in just about any environment, that keeps Light endlessly fascinated.</p><p>“I won,” L tacks on to his previous statement.</p><p>“The game is not over until you stop coming to see me. Our game isn’t over until you stop thinking about me. Our game isn’t over until you stop caring so goddamned much about me.” Light wears a cutting grin as he speaks, “but you never will. Everything after me will seem comparatively boring, L. That’s it. I’m your last. I’m your last anything.”</p><p>This little speech doesn’t draw enough of a reaction from L to suit Light’s tastes. He watches L in silence for a moment, “Well, aren’t I? Have you had any cases as exciting as the Kira investigation? Fucked anyone as interesting as me.”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Light can’t wipe the grin off his face despite the fact it pulls uncomfortably at his cut lip and pushes against the bruises littering his cheeks.</p><p>“But,” L begins, his thumb hooking over his bottom lip in his customary way, “I could say the same about you.”</p><p>“Well then. Look at us. Equal in our treachery.”</p><p>L nods slowly, finally meeting Light’s eyes. Something snaps into place between them, and L reaches out a hand as confidently as he had years ago when they shared meals, a home, and a bed. </p><p>The touch is delicate but not apologetic. Neither of them is ready to concede anything. </p><p>Light leans into the soft, cool skin of L’s palm, “do you miss this?”</p><p>“Always. But I think you do too.”</p><p>“Yeah, I do.”</p><p>L takes his time tracing over the markings of other men, all the men who have made sure L isn’t Light’s “last.” A thrill of possessiveness bursts to life within him, only to be firmly blotted out. Memories of the many times L had taken Light apart and pieced him back together come to mind unbidden. In one phantom vision, Light smiles up at him and tells L he’s beautiful, and it doesn’t even look like he’s lying.</p><p>“Does it hurt?” L murmurs, prodding at the broken bone. The site of impact is a sour yellow, a smattering of reds and deep purples exploding out from that rotten core.</p><p>“Don’t be stupid.”</p><p>“I want to hear you say it.”</p><p>Light is silent for a long moment. L considers digging in his fingers, but decides to wait, listening to the humming fans and that blurry electric sound the insides of all state-owned buildings share.</p><p>“It all hurts.” Light waits for L to trace his way back to Light’s lips; he darts out a tongue to meet the flesh of L’s hands when he does. The taste is as familiar as the smell of your own bedsheets.</p><p>“Can I tell you about last month?” Light asks, though, even if L were to beg him not to, he would press on. He needs L to have to reckon with this. He needs to watch L look him in the eye and reckon with what he’s done, leaving Light here. He wants this to be as physical and visceral for L as it was for him.</p><p>“If you’d like to.”</p><p>“They called me ‘little god,’ like you used to.” </p><p>L’s hand skitters to a stop for a moment, it’s the only reaction he’ll give the boy.</p><p>“One of them had filed down a spoon into a knife. Someone else had done the same to a toothbrush. I was cornered out in the yard. It was already getting dark, but it was only maybe around 5? It was freezing. Why is it that things always hurt worse when it’s cold out? Well, they cornered me, and I yelled for a guard, but I guess I knew no one was coming. It was stupid of me to try.”</p><p>“They stabbed me.” Light continues, holding L’s steady gaze, “and once they stabbed me, they stripped me, stabbed me again and again. I felt like Caesar.”</p><p>“Isn’t that a bit grandiose?”</p><p>“No. My political reach was further than his.”</p><p>L merely blinks at this, unwilling to fight this exact battle with Light, “go on.”</p><p>“Well, after I was bloodied to their liking, they fucked me.” L took careful note that Light had slipped into Japanese on the word ‘bloodied,’ ち, Chi.</p><p>“There were four of them. I think I was unconscious for a lot of it. Cleaning the wounds was a mess, though. They-” and here, Light’s smooth voice falters.</p><p>“You read the report.”</p><p>“I did.”</p><p>Light gives a tacet nod, “Broken rib, a bruised heart… infected wounds. I almost died.”</p><p>“I know. I’m sorry I couldn’t come to visit then.”</p><p>Light leans forward ever so slightly, “because you like to see me in pain?”</p><p>“Because I don’t like to think of you alone in that state. I also don’t like that you submitted yourself to another ordeal weeks later to get my attention again.”</p><p>Light truly laughs at this, doing his best to ignore the way his lungs burn, “Because you have so much sympathy for me. If you really cared, you’d be begging my forgiveness, telling me how much you regret having locked me up here. Honestly, L.”</p><p>L simply shakes his head, “did you feel bad about the murders you committed in the name of justice?”</p><p>It’s Light’s turn to return the gesture, “Here we are again. You and I are very similar. I think, in another life, we could have really been,” here Light pauses, unsure of what to name their odd union, “we could have been.” he settles on.</p><p>“That is true, Light-Kun.” L has reached Light’s swollen bottom lip, probing the cut with the tender swipe of his thumb.</p><p>“One more thing, L?” Light looks at the man across from him, searching his eyes for something to hold on to, “would you kiss me?”</p><p>L nods and leans over the metal table, closing the gap between them. His own thumb caught between their lips for a moment. L draws no blood; he avoids Light’s bruises and pets gently through his auburn hair. </p><p>When he pulls away, Light lets him wipe away the few tears that worked their way out from between the cracks of Light’s facade during the kiss. </p><p>The man leans in once more, pressing his lips to Light’s like a silent prayer, a blessing, and a gesture of goodwill. He demands nothing of Light. </p><p>L is gentle.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Oh. so you read the whole thing? You good?<br/>If you have any thoughts, any thoughts at all, shout them at me in the comments section. String together random words, tell me about your day, whatever. I just like to get a little notification because it remind me that the internet is home to real people.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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